One of the theory of evolution's important deceptions
is its claim regarding "vestigial organs." Evolutionists claim
that some organs in living things lose their original function
over time, and that such organs then disappear. Taking that
as a starting point, they then try to send out the message,
"If the living body had really been created, it would have
no functionless organs in it."

Evolutionist publications at
the start of the twentieth century announced that the human
body contained up to a hundred organs that no longer served
any purpose, including the appendix, the coccyx, the tonsils,
the pineal gland, the external ear, the thymus, and wisdom
teeth. However, the decades that followed saw major advances
in medical science. Our knowledge of the organs and systems
in the human body increased. As a result of this, it was seen
that the idea of vestigial organs was just a superstition.
The long list drawn up by evolutionists rapidly shrank. It
was discovered that the thymus is an organ which produces
important immune system cells, and that the pineal gland is
responsible for the production of important hormones. It also
emerged that the coccyx supports the bones around the pelvis,
and that the external ear plays an important role in identifying
where sounds come from. In short, it emerged that ignorance
was the only foundation on which the idea of "vestigial organs"
rested.

Wisdom tooth problems stem from the contemporary diet,
not because they are vestigial organs

Modern science has many times demonstrated the
error of the concept of such organs. Yet some evolutionists
still try to make use of this claim. Although medical science
has proved that almost all of the organs that evolutionists
claim are vestigial actually serve a purpose, evolutionary
speculation still surrounds one or two organs.

The most noteworthy of these is our wisdom teeth.
The claim that these teeth are a part of the human body that
has lost all purpose still appears in evolutionist sources.
As evidence for this, it is stated that these teeth give a
great many people a lot of trouble, and that chewing is not
impaired when they are surgically removed.

Many
dentists, influenced by the evolutionists' claim that wisdom
teeth serve no purpose, have come to see their extraction
as a routine matter, and do not make the same kind of effort
to protect them as they do for other teeth.53
However, research in recent years has shown that wisdom teeth
have the same chewing function as other teeth. Studies have
also been carried out to show that the belief that wisdom
teeth damage the position of other teeth in the mouth is completely
unfounded.54 Scientific criticism is now
amassing ways in which problems with wisdom teeth which could
be solved in other ways are instead solved by extracting them.55
In fact, the scientific consensus is that wisdom teeth have
a chewing function just like all the others, and that there
is no scientific justification for the belief that they serve
no purpose.

So, why do wisdom teeth cause a substantial number
of people problems? Scientists who have researched the subject
have discovered that wisdom tooth difficulties have manifested
themselves in different ways among human communities at different
times. It is now understood that the problem was seldom seen
in pre-industrial societies. It has been discovered that the
way in which soft foodstuffs have come to be preferred to
harder ones, over the last few hundred years in particular,
has negatively affected the way the human jaw develops. It
has thus been realised that most wisdom tooth troubles emerge
as a result of jaw development problems relating to dietary
habits.

It is also known that society's nutritional habits
also have negative effects on our other teeth. For instance,
the increasing consumption of foodstuffs high in sugar and
acid has increased the rate that other teeth decay. However,
that fact does not make us think that all our teeth have somehow
"atrophied." The same principle applies to wisdom teeth. Problems
with these teeth stem from contemporary dietary customs, not
from any evolutionary "atrophy."

53. Leonard M.S., 1992,. Removing third molars:
a review for the general practitioner, Journal of the American
Dental Association, 123(2):77-8254. M. Leff, 1993, Hold on to your wisdom
teeth, Consumer reports on Health, 5(8):4-85.55. Daily.T 1996, Third
molar prophylactic extraction: a review and analysis of the
literature, General Dentistry, 44(4):310-320